Turbulent me

I crouch, unsteady. The asymmetrical sandstone slab I’m on overlooks the seething ocean. The wind has scared away the joggers and tourists…even scared away the seagulls.

I venture out onto the headland. Lured by the sense of danger I creep slowly out towards the edge oblivious to the nearby beaches and populous coastline. Today, the ocean won’t let me go.

I wrap my ripped, just-in-case, scarf around my head to keep my whipping hair out of my eyes, and I watch the iron grey waves smash relentlessly against the rocks. Angry and turbulent, swirling and foaming. Filling my ears with their constant roaring. Filling my nostrils with their salty stickiness.

The waves are a mirror to my thoughts. Obsessively rushing and returning. Filled with despair. Too noisy to really even hear. Drowning out everything else. Crowding out the quieter, cooler layers that surely lie still underneath.

And in the midst of this endless motion is a rock. Bare, broad-shouldered and tanned she sits detached from the coastline. Alone and still. Solid.

Her roots, had she any, would extend to the centre of the earth. Anchoring her in place. Allowing her to accept each wave of pain as a silky caress of love.

The waves drown her completely until, reluctantly, the lace-work sticky strands of foam dissolve and slide back to their source. And she remains. Herself.

She is a constant reality in the midst of ever moving turbulence.

And I realise, like the rock, there is a more solid, more constant me. Anchored to my core. Unaffected by the waves of thought and emotion that crash repeatedly through my head.

And so I embrace the real me, my old friend. Anchored in the waves of thought and emotion that pass and dissolve unnoticed above. Until surely, more playful dancing waters return and I can find stillness inside once more.